Oli

One morning, Oli’s 7:30 alarm was one which plummeted him into immediate disgust with the inner workings and complexities of his life. The thoughts plummeted immediately after his mind sobered up from deep unperturbed sleep. But in an immediate and instant moment of semi consciousness his mind would draw and stare blankly at the light which sat across from his bed and next to his desk. Not depressed, but rather tortured by routine he would drag his almost limp body to the shower. Crusty eyes dilated as he was numbed by the showers' warmth. With skin throbbing he would think of when he was young, He would think of sliding open the Japanese style wooden doors of his old home and walking to a back corner of his backyard. Bamboo lined the fence, and directly diagonal to his line of vision lie a fig tree.Grey and unmovable at the trunk with slight holes and cracks through slits of white wood. Then further atop the tree the ruggedness of the bottom faded and swayed into finer pieces of brittle stem, glistening, smiling on drawn out July days. The tree aso had a set of chimes attached. And the birds would synchronize with the chimes creating a vibration so sharp it could slice through the bamboo and even the ears. There he would sit in his corner of it all, on a stump, shaded and blissful. Then thoughts as those would first go away as he would realize his stay in the shower was, unfortunately, long overdue.

He then wiped the steam off his mirror and dried off his body. As he shaved, put lotion on his face, brushed his teeth and put on deodorant he stared longingly at that mirror. He stared at his firm mouth and bright eyes. There was something pleasant and satisfying about how it all fit together. His figure was slim and hair dark and thick behind his ears.

Now dressed, Oliver walked upstairs and filled up his water bottle then continued back downstairs and grabbed his keys. And as he stood at the front door of his home a wave of anguish surged through his brain. This anguish sat so deep, that in that moment Oliver realized he would in fact not attend school that day.

And so Oliver walked out of his front door with intent. The birds harmonized that morning like how they had when he would lucidly think of that spot in his backyard. He walked over a path of stone in his front yard, opened the front waist high gate and walked the steps down to his car. And then again with no hesitation his car started and he headed towards the train station.

He now was walking past tar and milk speckled sidewalk when he came across a homeless man begging. His arms outstretched behind him, rough and caliced. His ankles sat bare and his beard had chunks of dirt and grime. He sat there with eyes half open like slits and headed up to the clouds. Oliver tried his hardest to avoid eye contact with him, he stared at his shoes. And when he made his way near the stairs of the station, where the man sat. He looked leftwards, attempting to seem as if he was looking at something or someone else. He then suddenly felt disgusted by his impulses. And as he stared off in the distance while waiting for his train he thought of the man's hands. Those which were filled with soot and cracked by time were once soft and tender, once those a baby. This thought was almost the catalyst which made Oliver consider turning back to his car.

“I don't even know what I'm doing here, where will I even go.” He asked himself.

As he sat by the window he looked out at the boundless coastal lagoons. Green had uniformly covered large sections of mud. The concavities and geometric patterns caused by the marsh fascinated him. The way in which the landform stretched between the water and the grasses swayed with an early morning wind shifted his mind to a more present place. In that present state he stared across his train car to see a man with an oversized blazer on messy hair and wooden clogs. Oliver thought as though he looked somewhat like he had just borrowed clothes out of the lost and found. But they weren't exactly unpleasant, the clothes rather gracefully suited his figure. He then watched as the man walked to the bathroom as his blazer shifted and back shifted under fulgent and un-ambient train lighting. He then decided he would talk to this man when he returned to his seat. That was his whole apparent purpose in not going to school today wasn't it, he thought as he pensively sat with one leg crossed over the other.

After the man returned oliver approached him and asked “Is this seat taken? The man simply responded with “no go ahead, looking out the window still paying little attention to oliver. They remained silent for a while and Oliver almost wished he would ask Oliver why he was out of school. He hoped for some acknowledgment of the hasty and rebellious act he thought he had committed. Then out of sheer coincidence and shock the man asked “So are you a student, what brings you here at this time?”

“I am about to graduate, I'm attending USC this fall.”

“Ahh I see.”

Oliver then kind of just gave him a short look and a smile. He thought of what a lackluster response the man had given him. He couldn't tell if he was seemingly uninterested or rather more realistically deemed himself to be far above the standard for western education. This upset Oliver, so out of spite he got up with no further discourse and left the seat next to the man.

As he sat in his new seat lingering thoughts of childhood continued to marinate in his mind. And again looking out the window he recalled a time when he and his family came around the endless bends and switchbacks of the jagged rocks and granite, into the vast and endless array of the western sierras. Where when driving down the bends the flatness reached beyond, to the depths of the vast lakes. And purple eddies of light fell and sat behind the mountains as the sun began to sink.

Oliver then realized in that moment for no apparent reason of sitting, he had in fact never felt so

belittled.